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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30047244">hold my hand</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/penceypineapple/pseuds/penceypineapple'>penceypineapple</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>idiots in love [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambassador Sokka (Avatar), Day One: Fake Dating, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Canon, Zukka Week 2021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:20:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30047244</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/penceypineapple/pseuds/penceypineapple</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> “Nobody’s even watching us,” Sokka says, reaching to grab Zuko’s hand. “We should at least look like we’re dating.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Zuko pulls his hand away. “If nobody’s watching us, what’s the point?”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Um, practicing, I guess?” </i>
</p><p>Or: Sokka + Zuko + Fake Dating</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>idiots in love [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2213031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>143</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hold my hand</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Zukka Week 2021 Day 1: Fake Dating</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Come on, Zuko. Hold my hand.”</p><p>Zuko shoots him a fiery glance. “Not so loud,” he grumbles in a hushed tone.</p><p>Sokka looks around the palace dining hall, at the red and gold lanterns illuminating their brave new world, the world after the war, the world nobody thought would ever exist. The party guests begin to file in, chatting and laughing in their elaborate red dresses and robes, and Sokka suddenly feels a little out of place wearing blue. Even after six years of being the Southern Water Tribe Ambassador, six years of living in the palace with Zuko, it hasn’t gotten easier. He still feels out of place sometimes, like people are secretly judging him (despite Zuko constantly assuring him that they’re not).</p><p>Zuko and Sokka both hate parties. But the palace’s event management team has been scheduling parties at the palace each month, and it’s hard to escape a party when it’s happening in your own home. They have no choice but to attend, and it’s exhausting. Especially when they have to hug and kiss and dance and hold hands when there’s nothing whatsoever romantic occurring between them.</p><p>Zuko fondly calls their fake dating scheme a ‘publicity stunt’, even though he supposedly hates being in the public eye.</p><p>Sokka doesn’t quite know what to call it.</p><p>Pretending to date your best friend is good fun. Especially when most days at the palace blend into the same routines, same meetings, same people, same <em>everything</em>. The parties also serve to break up the monotony. Attending elaborate parties at the Fire Nation Palace is all anybody ever does these days. Despite a prosperous post-war economic boom, the first years following the war had passed like a bad dream. Despite all the extra money, nobody was happy. Everyone aimlessly wandered through the gentle demands of normal life, unable to revert back to the cherished simplicity they’d once lived.</p><p>At least the parties fill the silence.</p><p>“Nobody’s even watching us,” Sokka says, reaching to grab Zuko’s hand. “We should at least look like we’re dating.”</p><p>Zuko pulls his hand away. “If nobody’s watching us, what’s the point?”</p><p>“Um, practicing, I guess?”</p><p>The fake dating was actually Zuko’s idea, at first. And initially, they had both been half-joking. But even so, Sokka had hoped that those words, that promise they made, was lodged in Zuko’s heart like it was in his own.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“If we’re both still not married by forty, we’ll marry each other. Deal?” Zuko had said, holding out his hand to shake on it.</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>Sokka’s hand moved to finalise the deal, but he quickly retracted his hand. “Isn’t forty a little old?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fine. What about thirty?” Zuko suggested.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Twenty-five.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No way,” Zuko protested. “Twenty-five is too young.”</em>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“Not really. Most people are married by then. At least in the Fire Nation, anyway,” Sokka said. “And we’re nineteen. That’s still six years away.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“A lot can happen in six years.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, exactly. So if neither of us find anyone in six years, don’t you think we’ve already given dating a proper go?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fine. Deal.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They shook on it.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Maybe it had just been a joke. Maybe that conversation didn’t mean anything. But it did to Sokka, and he could only hope that Zuko felt the same. And as the years went on, Sokka eventually realised that Zuko was taking their little deal as seriously as he was. They disagreed about lots of things in life, but at least this was something they agreed on.</p><p>Until it was no longer empty hope. It had become a real, slightly awkward conversation, on the night of Sokka’s twenty-fifth birthday. He was twenty-five, Zuko twenty-six, and they were both still single. Sure, they had tried to date, but nothing lasted. One of Sokka’s ex-boyfriends had even broken up with him because he <em>‘spent too much time with the Fire Lord’</em>, whatever that meant. Even though Sokka tried to explain that he was an Ambassador and therefore worked with Zuko every day<em>, </em>it wasn’t enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“We need it to look realistic,” Sokka had said the night he turned twenty-five.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Zuko laughed. “You got a strategy for this?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I actually do. We pretend to date each other for six months. Then the engagement won’t come as a shock to everyone.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Fine.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>They had announced their new relationship during a dinner party at the palace, where all their family and friends were attending <em>(“We don’t want to explain it to everyone individually. Trust me, Zuko. That would suck”).</em></p><p>For some reason, nobody appeared shocked in the slightest when they held hands and rehearsed their scripted, hilariously sappy speech about <em>‘being friends for so long and realising it was something more’.</em></p><p>And for some reason, they didn’t have to put much effort into making their fake relationship look convincing. Everyone believed them anyway. Even Katara claimed to have <em>‘known all along’ </em>that they were more than just friends. Although Sokka had wanted to tell his sister the truth, the truth that there was nothing whatsoever going on between him and Zuko, he knew he had to keep his mouth shut.</p><p>Pretending was a lot easier than they expected.</p><p>Now, they’ve been fake dating for three months. Only three months left until the fake proposal, the fake engagement. And then comes the fake wedding, the fake vows, the fake honeymoon. It had all been thoroughly planned and scripted, like lines of a play. Sokka is scheduled to propose to Zuko at eight forty-five in the evening on a Friday, after a romantic dinner at the Fire Nation Capital, in the town square <em>(“If there’s a proposal and nobody’s there to see it, did it ever happen?”, Zuko had said one night).</em> Zuko has written a proposal speech for Sokka to memorise and rehearse on the night. After that, they’ll be on the front page of newspapers for weeks, so they won’t have to formally announce their engagement to any of their friends. As for the wedding, Zuko has been planning it for months, and Sokka has no idea how it’s going.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ve been planning it for like six months, Sokka. It’s fine,” Zuko had assured him, last time he’d asked about the wedding.</em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>“But we’ve only been dating for three months!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Shit, I… I meant to say three months. I’ve been planning it for three months.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sure you have.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>To be honest, Sokka wouldn’t mind a real engagement, a real wedding. But he doesn’t know whether Zuko would be too keen on the idea, so he doesn’t bring it up <em>(Wouldn’t want to ruin the fake engagement, after Zuko put so much effort into it).</em></p><p>Zuko grasps his hand, pulling him out of his thoughts and back into the present. “There. Happy?”</p><p><em>Now that was unexpected.</em> “Yeah. I’m happy. Want to dance?”</p><p>Zuko nods and together, they walk over to the centre of the dining hall, which has now been turned into the spot for dancing, even with a live band playing in the corner as couples gently sway to the music. Still holding hands, Sokka leads his fake boyfriend to a spot next to Katara and Aang.</p><p>“I’ll put my arms around your shoulders,” Sokka instructs. “You put your arms around my waist.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I’m taller. It’s just how it works.”</p><p>“You’re not even that much taller-“</p><p>“Come on, Zuko. Please just do it.”</p><p>Zuko’s warm arms wrapping around Sokka’s waist is enough to make his heart stop. But he can’t let his feelings get the better of him, he reminds himself. It’s not real, after all. He wants to tell Katara, tell Aang, tell all his friends, that they’re being lied to. That none of this is real. That everything is fake, apart from Sokka’s own feelings he cannot suppress. But he doesn’t utter a word. Because he can’t betray Zuko like that.</p><p>He must continue to live a lie.</p><p>Suddenly, the lively music mellows out, and Sokka pulls Zuko into his chest. It’s what couples are supposed to do during slow songs, after all. He’s simply going along with everyone else. No feelings. Because if you have no feelings, you can’t get hurt when the other person inevitably doesn’t feel the same way you do.</p><p>Zuko’s soft voice brings him out of his head. He can almost feel Zuko’s breath against his skin as he says, “Sokka?”</p><p>“Yeah?” Their voices are barely audible underneath the music. Words uttered but never to be heard. A little world, made just for them.</p><p>“How about we go on a real date sometime?”</p><p>Sokka smiles. “I’d like that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>first time writing something angst-free in a while, let me know how I went!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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